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From June 1997 until the present, the Namies have led the first and only U.S. organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying that combines help for individuals via our websites & over 10,000 consultations, telephone coaching, conducting & popularizing scientific research, authoring books, producing education DVDs, leading training for professionals-unions-employers, coordinating national legislative advocacy, and providing consulting solutions for organizations. We proudly helped create the U.S. Academy of Workplace Bullying, Mobbing & Abuse.

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Posts Tagged ‘Machinists’

The President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) is calling on Boeing CEO Jim McNerney to apologize to Boeing’s workforce for offensive remarks made during a quarterly earning call with reporters on July 23, 2014.

“The heart will still be beating, the employees will still be cowering, I’ll be working hard,” said McNerney in response to a reporter’s question about whether he had plans to retire after he turns 65 next month. Boeing’s policy is for executives to retire at age 65.

McNerney is ranked #126 on the Forbes list of CEO compensation earning $13.36 million per year.

“Boeing’s CEO would have been far better served to give credit to the workforce that has driven the company’s sales and profits to record levels,” said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger. “Instead, his unfunny and unnecessary remarks serve as reminder that the Jack Welch style of anti-personnel management is still alive and well at Boeing. If he is able to get his foot out of his mouth, the very next thing we hear from Mr. McNerney should be a sincere apology to all employees at Boeing.”

The IAM and Boeing have a contentious relationship with Boeing always threatening IAM with shutting down production plants and moving to anti-union states (as they did for one plant moving to South Carolina from Washington state).

On that same Friday, McNerney issued an apology distributed companywide. He said the comment made during a call about the company’s quarterly results was a “joke gone bad.”

Update after Jan. 3 vote: 51% of Machinists accepted the final Boeing proposal under pressure from politicians and the IAM International. Read background story.

Statement of IAM Local 751:

Machinists Union members have voted to accept the Boeing Co.’s proposed eight-year contract with a 51 percent yes vote.

“Our members have spoken and this is the course we’ll take,” said Tom Wroblewski, the president of Machinists Union District Lodge 751, which represents more than 30,000 hourly workers at Boeing plants in Puget Sound.

The decision means Boeing will stop seeking alternate sites for its 777X aircraft program, the latest version of its best-selling widebody jet, and start preparations to start final assembly and wing fabrication in Puget Sound.
The union’s goal in coming years will be to fight to ensure Boeing lives up to its commitment to its workforce and keeps jobs in Washington state, Wroblewski said.

The vote to accept the contract came even though Wroblewski and the District 751 leadership team had unanimously recommended that union members reject Boeing’s offer, which included steep concessions on retirement and health care benefits and limits on future wage growth.

“All along we knew that our members wanted to build the 777X, and that it was in Boeing’s best interest to have them do it,” he said. “We recommended that our members reject the offer because we felt that the cost was too high, in terms of our lost pensions and the thousands of dollars in additional health care costs we’ll have to pay each year.

“Now, it’s up to all of us now to pull together to make this airplane program successful. I’m confident we will do that, because as we’ve said all along, this is the most-skilled aerospace workforce in the world.”

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee was once a liberal democrat as Congressman. Now he fawns over one of the state’s two large employers — Boeing — as if he was once an executive there. After McDonnell-Douglas merged in 1997, Boeing became the only surviving American aircraft manufacturer. Its 787 Dreamliner model was fraught with problems when launched. It’s newest commercial project is to build the wide-body 777X model. Assembly is scheduled for the Seattle area. But before starting, Boeing decided to alter its contractual relationship with a big part of its laborforce — the machinists. The corporation is behaving as an unscrupulous monopoly.

Boeing moved its corporate headquarters from Seattle, its home since William Boeing bought his first airplane factory site in 1910. It settled contentious strikes, especially with its machinist employees (the IAM, Local 751 in Seattle) the most recent contract expires in 2016! However, negotiating for changing terms began in 2013. Boeing demanded more “givebacks,” concessions, by the union.